Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Foreword: “The Glowing of Such Fire”—A Tribute to Ralph Kirkpatrick
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Family
- Part Two Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
- 2 Nadia Boulanger
- 3 Alexander Mackay-Smith
- 4 Wanda Landowska
- 5 John Challis
- 6 Serge Koussevitzky
- 7 Oliver Strunk
- 8 Roger Sessions
- 9 Harold Spivacke
- 10 Steinway & Sons
- 11 New York Times
- 12 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- 13 John Kirkpatrick
- 14 Alexander Schneider
- 15 Otto Luening
- 16 Donald Boalch
- 17 John Hamilton
- 18 Thornton Wilder
- 19 Lincoln Kirstein
- 20 Arthur Mendel
- 21 Edward Steuremann
- 22 Frank Martin
- 23 Olin Downes
- 24 Albert Fuller
- 25 Elliott Carter
- 26 Quincy Porter
- 27 Vincent Persichetti
- 28 Henry Cowell
- 29 Mel Powell
- 30 Bengt Hambraeus
- 31 Alec Hodson
- 32 Paul Fromm
- 33 Wolfgang Zuckermann
- 34 Kenneth Gilbert
- 35 Mr. and Mrs. George Young
- 36 Colin Tilney
- 37 Oliver Daniel
- 38 Eliot Fisk
- 39 Wilton Dillon
- 40 William Dowd
- 41 Meredith Kirkpatrick
- Afterword: Lessons with Kirkpatrick
- Appendixes
19 - Lincoln Kirstein
from Part Two - Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Foreword: “The Glowing of Such Fire”—A Tribute to Ralph Kirkpatrick
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One Family
- Part Two Friends, Colleagues, and Other Correspondence
- 2 Nadia Boulanger
- 3 Alexander Mackay-Smith
- 4 Wanda Landowska
- 5 John Challis
- 6 Serge Koussevitzky
- 7 Oliver Strunk
- 8 Roger Sessions
- 9 Harold Spivacke
- 10 Steinway & Sons
- 11 New York Times
- 12 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
- 13 John Kirkpatrick
- 14 Alexander Schneider
- 15 Otto Luening
- 16 Donald Boalch
- 17 John Hamilton
- 18 Thornton Wilder
- 19 Lincoln Kirstein
- 20 Arthur Mendel
- 21 Edward Steuremann
- 22 Frank Martin
- 23 Olin Downes
- 24 Albert Fuller
- 25 Elliott Carter
- 26 Quincy Porter
- 27 Vincent Persichetti
- 28 Henry Cowell
- 29 Mel Powell
- 30 Bengt Hambraeus
- 31 Alec Hodson
- 32 Paul Fromm
- 33 Wolfgang Zuckermann
- 34 Kenneth Gilbert
- 35 Mr. and Mrs. George Young
- 36 Colin Tilney
- 37 Oliver Daniel
- 38 Eliot Fisk
- 39 Wilton Dillon
- 40 William Dowd
- 41 Meredith Kirkpatrick
- Afterword: Lessons with Kirkpatrick
- Appendixes
Summary
Lincoln Kirstein (1907–96) was an arts patron, writer, editor, and ballet company director. He worked closely with George Balanchine and founded a number of ballet companies with him, including the American Ballet Caravan and the New York City Ballet. He served as general director of the New York City Ballet from its founding in 1948 until he retired in 1989. He was the author of numerous books, essays, poems, and libretti. He and RK knew each other at Harvard in the late 1920s. In 1949 RK wrote him a mostly complimentary letter after seeing a production of Stravinsky's Orpheus. However, in this letter he also criticized Concerto Barocco, another New York City Ballet production. The criticism offended Kirstein, and he responded with a scathing letter to RK. I have not received permission to publish it.
December 4, 1949
Dear Lincoln,
Some days ago I witnessed a performance of the Stravinsky Orpheus, and I want to congratulate you on a magnificent achievement, one of the few that I have ever thought really successful in coordinating choreography, scenery and music. To my way of thinking, it fully made amends for some of those horrors of chichi preciosity by Concerto Baracco [sic] and the other organisms that are cultivated by parasitic fungi on the surfaces of great music.
I was very much moved by the Stravinsky and felt that your years of effort have been more than worthwhile, that you are really establishing a dance tradition of ever increasing technical excellency.
Forgive these presumptuous lines of a Philistine, but please retain the sentiment of congratulation and gratitude they contain.
As ever,
Ralph
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ralph KirkpatrickLetters of the American Harpsichordist and Scholar, pp. 110Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014